Chapter Text
It was strange how quiet a prison could feel when the world outside was nothing but teeth and rot. Four years ago, these fences were cold steel and shadows — a place to hide, not to live. Now there were gardens, solar lamps, a rusting playground where the kids came to climb and scrape their knees.
He’d watched it all — the fences rebuilt, the cells turned into rooms with curtains instead of bars, the yards stripped of old weeds and filled with rows of kale and carrots that belonged more to Glenn than to the guards who once walked the watchtowers. Woodbury had its clean streets and new porches now, still led by Caesar — a man who’d learned it was better to build houses than walls. By the new community built by the lake, Rick and Shane wrangled a new kind of peace, drawing fish from Guntersville’s deep water and feeding mouths from all three places when the crops thinned.
Sophia and Carol had drifted to Woodbury, drawn by its focus on travel and scavenging. Carl and Judith spent their time at the Lake, running half-wild under Rick’s watchful eye and Shane’s rough lessons.
But Gael and Clementine… they’d stayed here more than anywhere else — the prison felt like the truth to them both. Maybe because its walls matched the ones they’d built inside themselves over time. Or maybe because it still reminded Gael of what he’d lost — and what he’d chosen to keep alive.
It hadn’t been easy to earn his place. Not just another mouth to feed. Not just the carpenter’s boy, not just the addict’s son. When Hershel took him under his wing, it wasn’t out of pity — it was because Gael refused to stand by and let someone else hold the scalpel. He’d learned the way some kids learned to carve toy swords — small steps, rough hands, cut fingers. And in return, they gave him something better than safety: they gave him responsibility.
Three communities now trusted him to stitch up bullet wounds, to cut out rot from old infections, to look a mother in the eye and say push . He’d traded the smell of wood shavings for the sharp stink of alcohol and sweat and blood — and it suited him fine.
A soft thunder rolled outside — summer coming on thick — but the room inside the old guardhouse was stifling. Maggie lay on her back on the cot they’d cleared for her, sweat soaking her hair into dark curls. Glenn knelt by her head, white-knuckled grip on her hand. Hershel hovered behind Gael, silent but steady, the old man’s face lined deeper than four years ago but his eyes just as sharp.
The scream tore through the prison halls — a sound Gael had learned to fear and respect. The sound of life clawing its way out of the dead world.
He braced his palms on Maggie’s knees, voice calm in a storm of pain.
“Okay, Maggie, look at me — you’re almost there. I can see the head. You’re gonna need to push again, real hard, alright?”
She sobbed something like a curse, then bared her teeth and bore down. Glenn murmured in her ear, voice cracking on old promises of forever.
Gael barely heard them. His whole world shrank to the thin crown of dark hair crowning between blood and skin and new hope.
This was what he’d traded his father’s hammer for — not building houses, but building seconds, minutes, whole futures out of screaming flesh and his own trembling hands. He was no longer the boy waiting on park swings for his mother’s sins to pass him by. He was the one they called for when death knocked — and the one they thanked when it left empty-handed.
It wasn’t freedom, not really. But it was something . A purpose that filled every mile he walked between the prison, Woodbury, and the lake settlement. Every infected wound he cleaned, every fever he broke, every newborn cry that cut through the silence that once belonged to walkers alone.
He wondered if his father would have understood. Maybe he would have laughed — the boy with a carpenter’s name mending bones instead of wood. Maybe he would have said that’s what Lutz men do — fix what’s broken, one nail, one stitch at a time.
Gael leaned forward, breath caught. The baby turned, slipping wet and warm into his waiting hands.
“There we go… there you are… easy now…” He angled the shoulders, hands sure, heartbeat steady.
Another scream — a final one — and then a new sound swallowed it whole: the wet, stuttering cry of a child that hadn’t known this world until now.
Gael lifted the baby to check him over, voice hoarse with more relief than he’d ever show. “It’s a boy,” he told her, but Maggie was already weeping too hard to hear.
Glenn kissed his wife’s forehead. Hershel’s hand landed on Gael’s shoulder, heavy with pride, light with age.
Gael looked the baby boy over — pink, loud, alive — then tucked him gently into Maggie’s waiting arms. Both she and Glenn were already cooing over him, voices soft and raw with relief. Gael stepped back as Hershel passed him a clean rag. He wiped the sweat from his forehead, feeling the tremble in his arms now that the adrenaline was fading.
Ten hours. Ten long hours of labor that had him half-certain he’d be burying another piece of his heart in the yard out back. But as he watched the three of them huddled close— Maggie pressing her lips to the baby’s damp hair, Glenn brushing tears from his own cheeks — Gael let himself believe, for once, that maybe goodbye wasn’t waiting for them just yet.
Hershel eased closer, leaning heavy on his cane as he peered at his daughter and newest grandchild. “What’re you going to name him?” he asked, voice rough around the edges.
Glenn glanced up, a shy grin tugging at the corners of his mouth. “If it’d been a girl, we were thinking Annette. But for a boy…”
Maggie looked at Glenn, then up at her father, her smile tired but sure. “Hershel. We want to name him Hershel.”
The old man’s breath caught. He looked at the baby like he’d been handed a second chance to hold all the good things the world still had to offer. Gael just smiled and turned away, giving them their moment while he cleared the bloodied rags and stacked the instruments back in the tin basin.
It wasn’t Hershel’s first grandchild — Ben and Beth had welcomed a girl, Eliza, last winter, born screaming into the cold. And it wasn’t Gael’s first baby either. He’d been terrified of childbirth when he was younger — all he’d known of it was how it could tear a family apart overnight. Lori. Rebecca. Blood that never stopped. But Hershel had shown him the pieces, taught him how to watch for the signs, how to guide a mother through the worst hours of her life and keep her breathing on the other side.
Fifty babies, give or take. Fifty chances to prove to the world — and to himself — that it didn’t all have to end in a grave.
Gael poured fresh water into a clean bowl and brought it to Maggie’s side. “Alright, Maggie. Let’s get you cleaned up. You want Glenn and your dad to stay?”
Maggie exhaled a laugh, though it came out closer to a sigh. She glanced at Glenn, then at Hershel, both men hovering like they couldn’t bear to let her go. “Why don’t you two take him outside? I’m sure everyone’s dying to see him.”
“You sure?” Glenn asked, already curling his arms tighter around his son.
Maggie just nodded and pressed a kiss to his jaw. “Go on.”
Gael watched them step out, the door swinging shut behind Hershel’s slow steps and Glenn’s soft promises to the bundle in his arms. For a moment the room was quiet again — just Maggie’s ragged breaths and Gael’s heartbeat in his ears.
“You holding up alright?” he asked, his voice dropping to the calm, even tone that had come to him easier than sleep these days.
“Tired, obviously,” Maggie huffed, shifting on the cot as Gael dipped a cloth into the warm water. “Beth had her first in an hour. Meanwhile, I get ten hours of hell.”
Gael cracked a grin as he wrung out the cloth. “Ten hours, ten minutes. You beat the Mathisons in Woodbury. Their twins only took eight.”
Maggie groaned and let her head fall back against the pillow. Gael cleaned her gently, careful of every bruise and tear the world had left behind this time. When she was settled, he hooked a thumb over his shoulder at the clean gown waiting on the back of a chair.
“Come on, let’s get you into something that doesn’t look like a battlefield,” he said.
Maggie rolled her eyes but let him help her sit up, her hands gripping his forearms like she trusted him more than the walls holding the walkers back outside. And for the first time all day, Gael let himself feel it — the exhaustion, the relief, and that quiet spark of pride that he’d carried three communities through another night.
Gael leaned against the railing just outside the guardhouse door, sleeves rolled to his elbows, the faint warmth of Maggie’s delivery still clinging to his skin. The yard below was lit by a scattering of lanterns — too soft to keep every shadow at bay, but enough to make this old cage feel like home instead of a ruin.
Maggie and Glenn were inside now, sleeping tangled around their boy. It felt good knowing they’d made it through. That he’d gotten it right again .
The rest of the group sat in a tight circle around the small fire pit someone had built from cracked bricks and an old rusted barrel. Nobody was drunk — there wasn’t enough good whiskey left to waste — but there was bread, some dried fish jerky, and a pot of thin soup that smelled half decent. They ate together like they used to. Nowadays it was rare to be all together.
Rick and Michonne were close together — talking in that low, cautious way they did when they thought nobody was listening. Judith, six years old now and all bright eyes and missing teeth, jabbered away between Michonne’s knees, little AJ curled beside her, dozing against Kenny’s thigh. Michonne absentmindedly combed her fingers through Judith’s hair, and even from here Gael could see the small smile tugging at the corners of her mouth. It wasn’t official yet, but it would be soon — Rick and Michonne didn’t need to say it out loud. Everyone with eyes could see it.
A soft laugh drew his gaze over to Kenny and Sarita. They were leaning into Shane, who was waving his hands, spinning some old hunting story — probably bragging about how Pete at the lake nearly tipped his boat trying to spear a catfish bigger than Carl. Shane’s grin was easy, open. Gael still found it strange, seeing Shane laugh more than he growled. Age had chipped away the worst of Shane’s rough edges — or maybe living long enough to bury the worst grudges had done it instead. Him and Andrea had tried to build something together once, but both had been honest enough to admit they weren’t a forever thing. Strange how survival forced people to grow up and soften at the same time.
Further down, Doug and Carley sat shoulder-to-shoulder, talking with Hershel like nothing about the world had ever gone wrong. Carley’s hand rested over the slight curve of her belly, thumb rubbing small circles no one else seemed to notice. Gael always found them funny together — Doug with his bumbling sweetness and Carley, all sharp edges and dry humor. Kickass Carley and Soft Doug — somehow they made perfect sense when the nights got quiet.
Hershel chuckled at something Doug said, his cane propped against his knee. The years had deepened every crease in the old man’s face. He needed a knee replacement — or so he told Gael every other morning when the weather turned damp. But Hershel didn’t complain much. Most of the heavy lifting fell to Gael these days, anyway. He didn’t mind. It kept his mind busy — busy enough not to notice the maps under his cot or the itch that crept up his spine whenever the fences creaked at night.
Carol stood off to the side with the Dixons — Daryl leaning on his crossbow like it was a third arm, Merle gesturing wildly as he talked about some hunt or another. Carol laughed, head tilted back, eyes brighter than they used to be. She spent most of her time at Woodbury these days — she’d grown into her own version of Hershel, helping people heal with whatever Milton hadn’t scribbled down in those notebooks of his. Sophia hovered near her mother’s shoulder — taller now, sharper around the edges, boots scuffed with mud and brambles from weeks spent running the woods with Merle and Daryl. Eighteen years old and meaner than any walker if she wanted to be. Her mother still scolded her about her language, but Sophia just rolled her eyes and called Merle a bad influence — which he was, proudly.
Near the garden fence, Carl had cornered Nick and Luke — Gael could hear snatches of Carl’s easy, level voice drifting on the breeze. He was making his case — telling them they’d be better off down at the lake with Pete, who’d already set up his own nets and made himself a name gutting fish and telling tall tales. Nick and Luke stood shoulder to shoulder — mended, somehow, despite the mess they’d made for themselves all those years ago. Nick never returned Luke’s affection, but Luke never really asked for it again either. Some wounds just scabbed over on their own.
Carl — seven when the world fell apart, now fourteen going on thirty. Gael saw so much of Rick in him it was almost eerie. Same hard jaw, same stubborn eyes, same way of smoothing everything over so no one had to bleed more than they had to. If Gael had to bet on any of them to keep it all standing long after the fences rusted through, it’d be Carl.
By the far bench, Beth and Ben sat laughing with Sarah, Eliza perched in Sarah’s lap, squealing as Sarah made faces at her. Ben was easy to read — he’d do anything for Beth, and Beth never had to want for anything with Ben around. He knew when to slip her wildflowers when the fields bloomed, knew how to find her the last hidden chocolate bar when she looked ready to cry. Gael never worried about them — not since the night Hershel asked Gael his opinions on Ben.
Sarah, though — Sarah was a different breed now. Eighteen as well, braver than most men twice her size, bold enough to stand in the middle of a horde with nothing but a machete and a grin if it came to it. She said exactly what she thought, never hesitated, never hid behind anyone’s shadow. Gael wasn’t blind — Sophia’s rough tongue had rubbed off on her more than he or Clementine ever had. He still wasn’t sure if that was good or bad.
His eyes drifted again, almost like muscle memory. Past the circle of firelight, near the fence line, Clementine laughed at something Omid said. Her head tipped back, dark hair catching the lantern glow. Krista sat beside her, Iris perched at the edge, one knee bouncing, always restless. Lee stepped up behind them, hand slipping into Iris’s without a second thought. The four of them — they’d made it their mission to raise Gael, Clementine, and Sarah right. Or at least as right as they could in a world that didn’t play fair. Iris was still the cool aunt — the voice of reason when tempers flared. Omid kept everything light, pulled laughter out of places Gael didn’t think laughter could live anymore. Krista and Lee butted heads more often than not — Krista never liked Gael taking on too much, Lee never liked Clementine having no direction with her life. Both not liking either of them to wander too far from the gates.
They’d tried their best. And so had he. He and Clementine still talked every night — same cell, same cold concrete floor softened by blankets and memories. When he traveled — to Woodbury for Milton’s surgical knowledge, to the lake to help old Doc Stevens pull teeth or remove hooks from arms and fingers — she went too. She said it was safer that way, and maybe it was. Or maybe it was just how they were built — two stubborn kids who never learned how to be apart for more than a few hours.
But something had shifted. Gael wasn’t sure when it started — maybe a few months ago, maybe years back when she started wearing her hair down instead of tucked under a cap, maybe when Sarah butting into their conversations, or when Sophia started nudging him with that sharp grin she’d borrowed from Merle.
Maybe something had shifted. Maybe not. But tonight, with a new baby behind him and the fences holding just a little longer, Gael let himself wave back.
Clementine caught his wave and slipped away from the parents without a word, her boots crunching lightly over the gravel path as she made her way to where he leaned against the railing. The lanterns behind her threw shadows across her face — softening the sharp edge of her jaw, the stubborn line of her brow.
She didn’t say anything at first. Just stopped beside him, shoulder brushing his arm, eyes flicking out over the yard where the firelight painted the others in flickers of orange and gold.
“What’re you thinking about?” she asked finally, voice low enough that only he could hear it.
Gael huffed a breath through his nose, eyes fixed on the flickering fire. “Nothing.”
He didn’t have to look to know she was squinting at him — that one eyebrow arched, that half-smirk pulling at her mouth like she knew exactly where to push.
“Bullshit,” Clementine said, flat and simple. “I know your thinking face. That’s your thinking face.”
He turned his head just enough to meet her stare — and yeah, there it was, that look that dug under every wall he’d ever built. He looked away first, eyes falling to his hands braced on the railing.
“Just the last four years. Nothing crazy,” he said, shrugging like that might make it smaller than it felt.
Clementine snorted. “It’s crazy enough. Seven years, Gael. Seven since everything went to hell. Feels like two. Feels like a hundred.”
“Yeah,” he murmured. The word caught in his throat, heavier than it should’ve been.
They stood like that a moment — her warmth at his side, the creak of the old metal rail beneath their elbows, the distant hum of voices and quiet laughter floating up from the yard below. Gael could feel the question fighting its way up his chest — the one he’d been chewing on for weeks, maybe longer.
“Do you ever—?”
He didn’t even get the whole shape of it out before the moment cracked wide open — two small shadows barreling up the path, squealing like they’d swallowed sunshine whole. AJ reached them first, hair a soft mess of curls, giggling so hard he nearly tripped over his own feet. Judith was right behind him, her hands outstretched, grin splitting her dirt-smudged face.
“Gael! Clem!” Judith shrieked, all baby teeth and boundless energy.
AJ crashed into Clementine’s legs, arms up without a word. She caught him under the arms and hoisted him high with a grunt, spinning him until his laughter bounced off the old prison walls. She didn’t even glance back at Gael, and he wondered — not for the first time — if she’d heard him at all.
Judith flung her hands at Gael, tugging at his sleeve until he knelt, letting her clamber up into his arms like she’d done a hundred times before. He forced a smile as he swung her around, earning a squeal that made his ears ring.
“Shoulders!” Judith demanded, voice muffled against his collar.
Gael sighed, a small laugh slipping out despite himself. He shifted her weight, careful with her skinny knees, and lifted her until she perched on his shoulders, her tiny boots bumping his chest.
“Better?” he asked, peering up at her with a crooked grin.
Judith’s hands pressed flat on either side of his head, fingers curling tight in his hair. Her little voice dropped to a conspiratorial whisper as she leaned down, her grin wide enough to break the dusk in two.
“Better,” she said.
And just like that — the question was gone. Folded away for another night, or maybe never.
